Field of the Invention
The present invention is a biomarker-based risk assessment tool for predicting, diagnosing and distinguishing postharvest chilling-related physiological disorders of Rosaceous fruit crops, including apple and pear.
Background of the Invention
In the fruit industry, multiple browning disorders result in significant annual losses. A major obstacle to developing strategies that reduce such losses is the lack of methods for evaluating the risk of any of the multiple browning disorders materializing at any time during the twelve month storage and distribution period due to chilling stress imposed by the required cold storage. There have been no biomarkers identified that are useful to assess the effect of cold storage stress where the disorder is multifactorial and where the outcome will not become evident for many months. The risk is difficult to determine as existing tests aimed at estimating fruit quality are not linked with conditions associated with browning disorder risk. Thus, there is currently a need to develop more effective techniques for identification of endpoints for monitoring disorder progression during the storage and the distribution period and for evaluating the effectiveness of changes instituted in efforts to treat and control such disorders. To date, no consistently effective risk assessment exists targeting postharvest disorders and control measures are even lacking for many prevalent browning disorders.